Madness
by indyyy
Summary: Matt ends up caught in some scheme of Mello's after leaving Wammy's to find him - but it's a twisted web they weave...expect sex, dark humor, sarcasm, angst, violence, and assorted other goodies. Rated T - may go up. POVs switch. R&R, please!
1. ONE : STREET LAMP

**DISCLAIMER:** I do not own Death Note. If I did, I'd...well, I dunno. I don't have anything clever to say. Don't hate. ;A ;

**NOTE:** This is my first fic. o3o I used to be absolutely OBSESSED with Death Note fanfiction a couple years ago, and since I'm just getting into it again, I decided to give making an account and writing a fic myself a shot. Yeah. You've been warned. C;

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Harsh, artificial light still filtered in through the moth-eaten orange-and-green spotted curtains covering my window. They were thin. Inadequate. Hell, if there's any sort of light – other than the TV, of course – in my room at three in the morning, something must be wrong. Very wrong. But they had come with the place, just like the rest of the furniture – I couldn't get them down if I tried, anyway. I didn't own a ladder, and they were hung high above the actual window, for whatever reason. Besides, exerting too much effort at _decorating _makes you a pussy. A _total _pussy. I didn't need to waste my energy going to buy a ladder and replacing the ugly curtains with something more functional.

It was still aggravating, though. I couldn't deny that. There was a street lamp glowing brightly right at my window. And when I mean right at it, I mean if I opened the window and busted the screen I'd be able to touch the bulb. And of course, my apartment faced east, so I also got a wake-up call each morning – undeserving, mind you, and completely unwelcome – by the cruel, cruel sun. That's one of the reasons my one-room apartment was so cheap, I suppose. It was a steal for an apartment that came with furniture, let alone one with a working toilet. Of course, I had the nagging suspicion that this apartment once hosted a murder scene and it was rented out quickly to get rid of the evidence, but I decided to take the more optimistic route and believe that it was so cheap because of its shitty location. Eh, whatever. It came with furniture. I needed that.

I yawned loudly and stretched, throwing my Xbox controller and thoughts of Nazi zombies to the side and reaching for the remote. I grinned proudly to myself – I had been smart when I decided to never put my pull-out sofa back into a couch and just sleep where I spent my days. Living in one room had its advantages – no walking to bed after a gaming binge, and lord knows any apartment I could afford wouldn't have a bedroom big enough to contain my huge-ass TV and all my consoles and games.

I drifted off with my body turned away from my window. The street lamp still brightened the small, cramped room and the glow of the TV was still burned into my retinas, but I fell asleep quickly anyway. I hadn't slept in about two days, so my exhaustion was to be expected. I slept like I was hibernating – the best sleep I'd had since I had started living here two weeks ago – and probably the best sleep I'd have for several more years.

I had a good dream that night, despite the fact that it marked the last full night of sleep I'd have for a good, long while. I couldn't remember much about it, aside from the scent of chocolate and the intense feeling of warmth – oh, and the fleeting notes of soft laughter echoing in my ears...

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Just as every other day I'd spent in my new apartment, I woke at dawn. I wouldn't have minded the sun waking me up in the morning, if, say, it was highlighting a cute face lying next to me peacefully after a night of epic proportions...but I had no such luck. Even though I was living on my own, I was sixteen, and I looked it – if not younger. Legally, I shouldn't even be able to rent my own place – but I had my own ways of dealing with annoying things like that. What sucked about the situation was the fact that prostitutes – the only girls I'd expected to be able to pick up, looking like I did – ignored and scoffed at me out of fear that my parents might discover us when I took her home and report her to the police. I had tried numerous times to catch the eye of a willing street walker, but to no avail - I decided that it was because I looked young, so I picked up smoking. I think all I succeeded in was making myself look like I was trying way too hard to not look my age. In conclusion, if you thought living on your own at sixteen would give some much-needed rest to your right arm, you thought wrong.

I toddled off to my miniature kitchen after I realized I wouldn't be able to go back to sleep because I was hungry as hell. My black-and-white striped sock feet slapped the tile floor in harmony with my stomach growling. My eyes focused on them, a bit irritated, as I walked. I wasn't too fond of sleeping with socks on, but it was better to just leave them on when I went to sleep – while the apartment remained almost stiflingly hot, the floor was icy.

I rubbed at my eyes, not used to seeing the world in technicolor. I felt around my neck for the goggles that I thought would surely be hanging there...they weren't. I then felt around the tangled mess that could barely be referred to as "hair" atop my head for the orange-tinted goggles that would make my unfamiliar world feel less foreign – my only source of true comfort in a world that had crashed and shattered around me...but they weren't there, either.

I stopped dead in my tracks, halfway to my fridge, my jaw going slack with shock. If there was one thing I always kept with me, _no matter what_, it was my goggles. I slept with them covering my eyes – they were like extensions of my body. I wouldn't be surprised that if they were sliced open my own blood would pour out and I would feel pain worse than my own leg being amputated. They had truly become a part of me over the years.

My breathing must have stopped for at least three minutes before I got a hold on myself. I attempted to look at the situation rationally – _they must be around here somewhere. I went to bed with them on, didn't I? Yeah, of _course_ I fucking went to bed with them on! I don't sleep walk...do I? I'd know by now if I did, right? Wait. Think. _The bed!_ Oh, God, they must be in the bed! Fuck, I'm stupid! _But if they had somehow fallen off, it would have been the first time. They always ended up around my neck or on my head if they didn't stay on my face...I pushed away my doubts and nearly sprinted back to my bed, the hunger gripping my stomach suddenly irrelevant and minor.

I searched. Oh, God, I _searched. _I threw off the covers, the sheets, the pillows, _frantic_ - I looked under the bed, under the mattress, between the cushions of the couch after I folded it back up...they weren't there. I tore apart my already-messy apartment in search of them. My mind went down dangerous paths – I began to recall the origin of my goggles, and thought about what it might represent if they were really gone. I remembered why I was here for the first time in the six months since I'd left. It wasn't often that I was so emotional, but the floodgates really did burst that morning – pardon the over-used metaphor, but "the floodgates bursting" was a frighteningly accurate description of my ordeal.

I shed more tears than I would like to admit that morning. I screamed louder than I ever had, the vocal chords I rarely used anymore stretching beyond their means. I pounded my knuckles onto the tile, morphing them into a bruised, bloody mess. By midday I was lying numbly on the tiles. Hunger, thirst, shock, and an extreme need to piss dulled my senses. I eventually sank into an apathetic, melancholy state, my mind becoming almost completely blank by mid-afternoon – I fell into a fitful sleep by evening.

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I woke up around midnight with a curious feeling of suspicion sharpening my mind above the numbness. My knuckles and throat hurt something fierce, but I drew myself up off the floor to uncover the source of my unjustified paranoia. I paced the room for a while, before wondering vaguely whether I'd be evicted for being so loud earlier. _Ah, well. Hackers have to move around a lot anyway, I guess, and I stole that dead guy's identity...he's a good source of income, I can make it..._I forced myself to think about other things as I tried to figure out what was making me so paranoid.

Not being able to bear them anymore, I began attending to my various needs – I ate some ramen, drank some Mountain Dew, and pissed. My daily routine went underway, despite my discomfort and the fact that my eyes kept shifting around my apartment, jumping nervously whenever I saw movement. At this point, I wasn't even thinking about finding my goggles – I was thinking about what kind of demon (at that point I'd ruled out anything else) could have taken them away from me and what I'd do when I found it.

I ended up folding out the couch and climbing into it glumly after an hour, some of my earlier hysteria replacing the shreds of suspicion that were still present. Despite my concentrated efforts to calm myself, I started to cry again. Quietly at first, and then almost as intensely as I did that morning. I retreated under my sheets for a while, seeking the comfort I so desperately needed from my goggles. It just ended up returning me to my horrible early childhood spent under my covers with my Gameboy, hiding from the chaos erupting around me, and then taking me back to my wonderful life at the House, hiding under the covers from responsibilities that didn't include my DS. Once I started having those thoughts, I sat up and distanced myself from the blankets. It helped quell the sobs that I hadn't realized were now racking my body.

I sat like that for a while, crying quietly and staring at the window brightened by the street lamp. My body ached.

At the window, I soon started to see shadows and hear muffled curses. _Hallucinating, now? Fuck. You're a pathetic creature, kid. Get a fucking _grip! I tried to turn the other way and go to sleep, angry with myself, but I couldn't. I caved after a few minutes, my eyes seeking the window out again. I heard a sudden banging and sliding noise. The window was open. My heart gave a start, and I felt my tear-stained eyes widen. A knife found its way through the window, skillfully tearing apart the screen. The ugly orange-and-green spotted curtains began to flutter out the window in the light summer breeze. My eyes consequently got even wider.

I stood up and walked toward the window, one part of me wondering what the hell was going on and the other part intuitively relaxing. I threw rationale out the window and pushed the curtains aside. I was greeted by a lithe man straddling the street lamp and holding onto my windowsill, a knife grasped in one slim hand. The light of the bulb lit a halo around his hair, casting his face in mountains of light and shadow. He was wearing goggles and a smirk.

"Care to help me up, Matty?"

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**ANOTHER NOTE: **Yeah, it's long. Congrats for getting this far and all. 8D Pleassssse review. I want to know what you think about it so far. Am I rambling too much, do you like my portrayal of Matty (I don't like the ultra-uke most people make him out to be), are you eager to read more, blah blah blah...? I adore feedback. C: I've got some stuff planned for the future, so don't worry about long waits between updates. C; By the way, I'm going to switch POVs - however, I'm not following a pattern, and the next chapter will probably be Matt. **In conclusion, if you're the least bit interested, review! 8DD**


	2. TWO : LANDLORD alt DUSTY BEAVER

**DISCLAIMER: **I OWN NOTHING!

**NOTE: **I meant to update sooner, but I got caught up in some stuff. AKA, I WAS DISTRACTED. It happens a lot ^_^ Anyway, I'm gonna try to keep this to a twice-weekly update schedule until school starts, because I have no life right now and like to keep occupied. x3

**ANONYMOUS REVIEWS:**  
_jell:_ Awesome, I appreciate it. Thanks for being my first reviewer ever. 8D

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If I were a poet, I'd probably describe what happened to me when Mello so graciously graced me with his goggle-faced grin – hey, pre-poetry alliteration! – as bright. Enormously bright. Painfully bright. Brightness ten times brighter than either the street lamp outside my shabby window or the sun greeting me in the morning. Bright enough to make your corneas bleed. The kind of brightness that gave you skin cancer. Bright enough to question whether plants needed sunlight or Mel-rays.

But I'm not a poet, so forget _that_ shit.

Anyway, I just stood there with my nose dripping, wondering when I'd be able to finally collect my jaw from the floor. Maybe I should get a job as a fortune teller – lord knows I'd need the money whenever that old standby of stealing dead people's social security numbers finally got me in trouble – because I had _known _something would happen. Something _bad. _I was more nervous than I ever had been..._well, maybe not as nervous I had been I was gonna tell Mells th- – _

_Wait, no. Not something _bad_! Mells' arrival was good, wasn't it...? I mean, I kind of lo- well, not really, not now, but that didn't mean I don't still revere him as a fucking god! I mean, he's Mell-fucking-_**o**_! Strong, brave, intelligent, _Mello_! The guy that was there for me at least ten percent of the time, and that was saying something, since generally people hover between zero and a third of a percent! I admire his bluntness, his manipulative skills, his slyness, his his tight, _tight _ass in leather pants...!_

_...why was I so paranoid-feeling and stuff, then, like I sensed something bad was going to come? God, what if Mello came to kill me or something? Were those the vibes I was getting? _Homicidal _vibes? But he wouldn't do that, would he? Cue a chorus of evil little demons screaming "HELL YEAH HE WOULD!"_

I wasn't even looking at him anymore – I was just kind of staring through him and instead experiencing firsthand whatever insanity he had brought with him. I'm sure my face was either blank or displaying my tendency to be batshit when distressed. I'm _guessing_ it was the latter, considering the words Mello said to bring me back to the somewhat ordinary dimension I formerly occupied...

"Hey Matt, if you had told me beforehand that you were considering skewering yourself on the street lamp I'm on, I'd have taken the stairs."

"...what?"

"You look like you're a danger to yourself and possibly everyone around you...what the hell was that face you just made? You looked like some kind of possessed squirrel."

"A possessed squirrel? Kinda like Justin Bieber, then?" I smirked at my own stupid joke. I was into all of that celebrity stuff, American celebrities in particular, and I followed that dumb pussy on Twitter for shits 'n giggles. What a fucktard. Lord knows I don't know what girls saw in that squirrel-y face. Squirrels are _nasty_.

"Who the hell is Dusty Beaver? That's a stupid name."

At this I could only laugh, stuttering out "N-n-nooooo...J-j-jus-justin...Bie-bie-ber!" in a way that made Mells look kind of concerned, which was rare for him. "You know, the gay sq-sq-squirell one? That one that doesn't know what the word 'German' means?" I laughed more, despite his awkward expression.

I must really have looked like I had gone off the deep end. And sure, I did cry a little as I was trying to tell him about Justin Bieber, and maybe I slapped my knee a time or too, and maybe I _did_ snort so hard my nose ached...but I stand by the fact that I am not in need of a straight jacket and a nice, padded cell. I just had a crazy day – that's all.

The fact that we had that short conversation while Mells was clinging onto my windowsill for dear life was sheer proof that we were probably both off our rockers. First off, just a few minutes earlier I was sobbing over loss of my goggles. My knuckles were bloody, my vocal chords were sore. I had a meltdown. Then, I started laughing hysterically from a bizarre mix of fear and relief – and because of my stupid joke and Mello's ignorance toward pop culture. Second off, Mello was behaving as if the year we'd been apart hadn't even happened, like it was merely a couple days time. Hell, he was being much more civil than I'd ever remembered him being. These points more than screamed "crazy."

But then again, Mello seemed closed-off. A bit preoccupied. Perhaps even nervous himself...? My observational skills and intuition were working, despite the hysterics I had been in. In the covert glances at him I caught between my heaving laugh-sobs, his eyes seemed to be darting behind my goggles...an almost infallible sign of anxiety. I would know. Sometimes I pretended they were dark enough to hide my expression, too.

"Uh, Matt. You do realize that you have further reinforced my opinion of you as a maniac in the last ten minutes...?" His tone was venomous, but with a little hint of teasing that I have come to associate with a happy Mello. A happy Mello that I would certainly not expect from this situation..._yeah, there's no way this is completely genuine. I could be arrogant and think that he's just happy to see me, but lying to yourself gets you two blocks past nowhere. _

I didn't answer. I just looked at him suspiciously.

"Am I supposed to straddle this thing til dawn, Goddamn it?" _There's that Mello I know and lo- – not anymore, Matt! Quit thinking that! _

"I guess you leave me no choice – I'll just have to shut the window!"

Mello just glared through the goggles. He looked ready to spit.

I sauntered toward him and took them off his face, faking closing the window before neatly putting them over my head. They were too big – Mello had probably adjusted them to fit his fat head. My body relaxed as I pulled them through my matted hair, but my mind sharpened. My goggles really did help me with more than protecting my eyes from the light from my various electronics. Tch, it was almost like L's posture thing...

_And now, cue drama. As if he had read my mind._

"MATT, YOU FUCKING MORON! You care more about your goggles than you do MY SAFETY! WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR PROBLEM! Aren't you even gonna ask about why I went out of my MY WAY to steal YOUR GOGGLES, if you care about them that much? HUH?"

"Actually, Mello, I just assumed you took them to get my attention after so long," I said, almost stiffly. Even his exaggerated melodrama seemed forced. Usually his bitching required no time to get out – I liked to think Mello had very poor brain/mouth coordination – but this time his little spiel was punctured briefly by pauses. His face wasn't as red as it usually was when he screamed, either, though his voice was loud enough. Again, I wondered what the neighbors would think and whether I'd get enough complaints to be evicted.

_Okay, so maybe he really is plotting my imminent death. But at least it's bothering him; I wouldn't want to know that he put seventeen bullets through me without a second thought..._

Against my better judgment, I decided I ought get on his good side and help him into my apartment. Even though we were _just_ – well, _I_ was just – joking around, and I used to lo- like him, I trusted my own instincts more than I trusted a volatile force such as Mello. I narrowed my eyes at him as I leaned out the window to grab him. He was situated so that his fingers were gripping the windowsill, his forearms were against the brick of the building, his chin was resting on the sill, and his legs were wrapped around the street lamp. It looked painful, and required more strength than anyone his size should be entitled to. I felt a little guilty that I didn't help him sooner.

I put my arms under his arms, clasping my hands behind his back and heaving him upwards. He kicked off of the street lamp and caught foot on the side of the building. He was essentially hanging down a two-story drop in my "gamer's arms" (read: noodles) with his feet barely clinging to anything. But he was still the bird-boned kid I always knew, so my muscles weren't screaming in protest or anything (more like whimpering)...besides, he was helping hoist himself all he could...I guess.

He ended up kind of lunging at me as well as he could. He ended up toppling me over onto the floor. My head hit the tile hard, but I tried not to wince. Wincing while a leather-clad chest was on top of you was decidedly uncool. I tried not to notice the fact that I could feel his heart beating on top of mine...

He stood up quickly – almost in embarrassment – before covering it up by turning his nose up a bit at the state of disrepair my apartment was in. Hey, I _was _a 16 year old boy. What'd he expect? But Mello had high expectations for everything, something I'd never allowed myself to have...but that's a different story...

"Glad to see you've fixed up the place nicely." The blonde took a bar of chocolate out of the front of his pants – good ol' Mello – and promptly plopped down on the pull-out couch.

"What, no hug for the best friend you haven't seen for a year? Really, what has the world come to?" I joked, sitting beside him.

"I'm not your best friend, Matt, I'm you're only friend." He scooted away slightly as he bit into his bar, but just enough so that I would get the picture that he wasn't going to be affectionate with me.

"True. But why do you say I've fixed up the place? You live here before? I thought this place was so cheap because someone had been murdered here and they were trying to get rid of some evidence, or something." I kept a casual tone, but my eyes were narrowed behind my goggles.

"No, Matt, of course not," he said, sounding reminiscent of a harsh-tongued grandmother scolding an argumentative child.

"Hmmm?"

"I'm just your landlord."

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**ANOTHER NOTE: **This was a lot more light-hearted than I intended it to be, really. BUT WHO CARES, I HAD MUSE AND THAT'S ALL THAT COUNTS. 8D I even changed the other category to "humor." I'm probably going to change the thing other than drama a lot. Oh, and next chapter may be a Mello, if I can find the muse. C;


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